


You Better Watch Out, You Better Watch Out, You Better Watch Out, You Better Watch Out, You Better Watch Out

by Everdistant



Category: THE iDOLM@STER, THE iDOLM@STER Shiny Colors
Genre: Christmas, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:48:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21986869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everdistant/pseuds/Everdistant
Summary: Hiori wants to bake Meguru a ham.How do you bake a ham.
Relationships: Kazano Hiori/Hachimiya Meguru
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	You Better Watch Out, You Better Watch Out, You Better Watch Out, You Better Watch Out, You Better Watch Out

**December 22nd, 8:07 PM**

It's not that Hiori means to pigeon hole Meguru. For starters, wouldn't Mano enjoy being pigeon holed way more? A hole full of pigeons, all for Mano. She'd  probably  cry. Hold them in her small hands and stroke their neck fluff. Down? That's called down, isn't it?

But it's not that she means to - she searches for a bird that isn't a pigeon, comes up with an eagle - eagle hole Meguru. She's not even  fully  American. Sure, she seems to miss her home, but it's not as if she's spending her every waking moment feeling like she's out of place.  Frankly, she seems more at home in Japan than Hiori does, and she hasn't even been to another country.

It's  just  that. You know. Christmas in Japan seems... different. From what it's like in the US. It's all signal, no noise. All noise, no signal?  They have the trees in malls, people give each other gifts sometimes, but it's all slanted like a funhouse mirror  .  Just  watching American Christmas movies is enough to tell her that, and she knows full well that Hollywood isn't giving her an accurate picture either.  There's not  really  that spirit of brotherhood among men, people don't  really  decorate their houses the same way . Granted, who actually owns a proper house in the middle of Tokyo, but even that excepted.

... Is Meguru Christian? There's like one church in a hundred mile radius and it might not even be the right denomination. What if Meguru is Baptist.

So it all must feel a little sad, for Meguru. She  probably  has good memories of Christmas back in the states. Seeing uncles, eating dinner with her family, that sort of thing. And what about Thanksgiving? And Easter? And Saint Patrick's Day?

It's not like she can arrange anything that impressive on such short notice. Heck, the offices have a tree in the corner, that's more Yuletide cheer than she can manage. But... you know.

She wants to do a nice thing.

For Meguru.

**8:32 PM**

Of course a convenience store isn't gonna have a whole-ass ham Hiori, you fucking idiot.

**8:57 PM**

What do you mean this supermarket is out of ham. Who's buying ham.

**9:12 PM**

Is this a good ham? Why does it come in a weird net? Has Hiori ever had ham-ham before? Like yes, she's had pork before, but  suddenly  she's not even sure what the difference between pork and ham is.  One time she ate veal because she thought it was  just  a fancy word for cows, and then when she realized it was baby cows she cried. Is this like that.

**9:22 PM**

Wait, people put mustard on ham? Like, to cook?

**9:32 PM**

Oh God it's the same cashier from earlier who told her this place was out of ham.

**9:53 PM**

Yes, she went across town to the same supermarket she got the ham from  just  so she didn't have to have a  slightly  awkward conversation, and now she's walking down the street in the middle of the night with a bottle of mustard in her hands like a weirdo.  And it's dark enough that she's worried about actual weirdos, which leads to her  nearly  tossing the bottle at a raccoon .

**10:02 PM**

Oh thank God, she actually has brown sugar.

* * *

**December 23rd, 07:03 AM**

She's halfway through brushing her teeth when she steps out of the bathroom, into the kitchen, and is staring at a ham. And a bottle of mustard. And a bunch of random accouterments. She worries,  briefly, on if that's even the right use of that word, before she realizes that right, she has to cook this. She's committed. She can't  just  leave a whole ham laying around.

**07:19 AM**

Her phone's playing one of their songs on loop, because it's sort of like having Mano and Meguru there with a her, even if it's not present her, as she taps through recipes. Right. Mustard, brown sugar, remove the rind -

She stares, very  suspiciously, at the ham, as she types < _what is a rind_ > into Google.

When none of the answers are that helpful, she changes it to _< what is a ham rind._ Please.>

**07:55 AM**

How long does a ham take to cook? Should she start this later? -- Wait, what if Meguru's busy all day?  She'd figured she'd be busy on Christmas-Christmas, but she'd figured  maybe  a couple of days before would be fine. Hence the ham.

<<hey could you come over later>>

No, that's way too pushy.

<<Would you like to come over for dinner?>>

Hiori leans forward on the counter and buries her face in her arms for a good two minutes. Okay, she can't text her that. That's too... it's not pushy, but it's as sweet as the brown sugar. It's pushy in a social contract way. She has to like, slip this in.

And that's why she texts Meguru something completely unrelated, and yes, of course her heart skips a beat when Meguru texts her back in 22 seconds with a bunch of happy emojis .

**08:33** **AM**

She's sitting on the floor of her kitchen, slumped against a cabinet, snickering at some video Meguru sent her before she remembers that, wait, she was in the middle of something .

_< <Would you like to come over for_ _dinner?_ >> She texts Meguru. Out of the blue. No windup.

Then she slumps forward and thunks the phone against her forehead a couple of times, embarrassed, and takes another twelve seconds to catch her breath when she sees Meguru's texted her back  . The << _sure!!! :DD_ >> makes her very happy, but also now she's made expectations.

**08:44 AM**

< _please show me pictures of a hams rind i beg of you_ >

**08:55 AM**

Oh, wait, is she supposed to leave it on for a couple of hours, then remove it?  The rind is the skin, she's got about a seven percent margin of error on that, but she still isn't sure what to do with that information . These recipes are all giving her conflicting information.

**09:06** **AM**

"Take your smoked or unsmoked ham," the man on Youtube says, and Hiori nods in agreement as she hefts the thing up. It  IS smoked  or unsmoked, so she hasn't failed so far.

"And put it in a large pan with enough space to cover it with liquid."

Oh, he should have told her to get a pan first, but after a few minutes of digging through her cabinets, she's got one of those too .

"We're using smoked ham."

But you said it could be smoked or unsmoked!

**09:11 AM**

Okay, she took a peek in the garbage, and the label DID say smoked. She's fine.

"Pour over about three liters of liquid. This could be chicken stock, beer, or apple juice, but we're using cider."

Two of those aren't  really  options, and apple juice doesn't sound great, so Hiori goes to see if she has chicken stock.

She does not have chicken stock.

**09:36 AM**

She doesn't even bother going to the closer supermarket. Barring her going into witness protection, she might never go to that store again.  The further one seems better stocked, anyway, and she manages to find chicken stock without even having to ask someone for help.  While she's there, she watches ahead in her video, and she's very glad for that because the man proceeds to list about seven different vegetables to add to the stock.

**10:01 AM**

"Bring the ham to temperature, and simmer for about three hours."

... So she reads a book and gets up every seven minutes to check on the pan.

**01:08 PM**

Removing the rind, or the skin, is actually kind of fun? Her knife slips under it very  easily  , and glides through it like butter. Peeling it off  is kind of  satisfying, even if the ham isn't very. Pretty. Without its skin on. Not that it was appealing with the rind *on*, but with it off it almost seems a little naked.  But she actually feels satisfied with her work when the skin's off, because it looks like she's managed to leave about as much fat on as the guy in the video. It's almost like she did a good job.

Mixing the glaze is actually fun too - a simple task of pouring everything into a bowl and stirring, brown sugar and mustard coming together into a brownish, syrupy mess. It smells good, too.  She doesn't have a nice brush for it like the man in the video, so she's reduced to using the flat of a spatula, but it still seems to be sticking onto it well.

**01:35 PM**

"Put it into the oven for 30 to 40 minutes on two-hundred degrees c, or until it's golden brown and caramelized.'

'Or' is the word of the devil, when it comes to cooking videos, and it leads to her essentially just crouching in front of her oven the entire time. This is probably going to give her some kind of eye issue, but she's come this far. She can't burn the thing.

**02:02 PM**

Is this golden brown enough?

**02:11** **PM**

It's  totally  burnt Hiori you moron why can't you do anything right this is why

<< _im on my way!! looking forward to it!!_ >>

If she escapes through the window,  maybe  Meguru will think something urgent came up? No, wait, Meguru would get worried, and that's even worse than feeding her a burnt ham. She could... she could turn into a bird and  fly  away. A bird wouldn't eat ham. A bird doesn't even know what Christmas is. That'd be perfect. And she could sit in Mano's hands and Meguru would call her cute and ask Mano if it's okay for her to hold her. And Mano'd offer, very  gingerly, over to Meguru.

And then Meguru would stroke her neck fluff.

Yes, being a bird would be perfect. She visualizes that, as hard as she can, but  regrettably  doesn't turn into a pigeon. She's still a human being, by some definitions, crouched in her kitchen with a ham that's two minutes over.

God. She's done this much. She can  just  \- she can  just  tough through it. It's  probably  less burnt in the middle, right? And if the mashed potatoes are nice and smooth, that'll make it seem a bit less tough, right?

**02:32 PM**

"You baked a ham!?"

"... sorry."

Meguru's sitting at her little dining table, because Hiori's is a home for two -  realistically  , one, but let her dream - staring at a plate of ham and ham and mashed potatoes, eyes a little wide.

"No way! I  just  \- you could have invited Mano, too, a ham's a lot for two girls to eat on their own! And...  seriously  ? Just for... uh,  just  for me?"

"... I mean, I've never even had a whole ham before. So I did it for you."

Meguru seems a little overwhelmed by that, poking at her food with her fork like it might  fly  away. Hiori winces when one of the pieces of ham turns over, reveals the vague black spot on the bottom.

"Sorry, it got a little over -"

And Meguru shovels the entire piece into her mouth, not even picking around the burnt spot.  She chews  quickly, because Meguru eats  quickly  \- it's one of her cutest habits, in Hiori's opinion - and then gives a big grin.

"Hehe. Let you in a secret, my mom burnt hers way worse one year, and it was still good."

"... So it's fine?"

"It's great!"

Hiori's so relieved she about passes out, but she manages to fiddle with her hands, drum her fingers together, and work up the nerve to say -

"Me... Merry Christmas," she murmurs, and Meguru glances over at her, surprised once again.

And then, with a tilt of her head.

"... Aww, Kentucky Fried would have been fine, you didn't have to go this far -"

"Kentucky's at least seven states away from Michigan. That wouldn't have been right."

... Hiori  really  doesn't get why Meguru's laughing so hard. But at least she's trying to eat more of the ham between the laughing, so. You know.  Maybe  it worked out?  Maybe  this feels like a proper Christmas thing?

Hiori feels like there's peace on Earth, anyway.

* * *

**December 26th, 05:36 PM**

The offices are full up these days - all that talk about Christmas in Japan aside, Christmas is still one of the busiest times of year for them  .  Hiori sees plenty of the girls from the other units, so when most of them are lounging around between shoots, it's a perfect time to -

"Do any of you want leftover ham? I've had some sitting in my fridge for a few days now. I don't want to throw it out, but I can't eat  all of  it."

"Oh!"

\-- That tall girl raises her hand, and Hiori takes a second to place her name. Kaho, isn't it?

"I'll take it! Mamemaru loves ham!"

"... Who's Mamemaru?"

"My dog!"

"... please don't call my ham dog food..."

**Author's Note:**

> look i just wanted to work out my own cooking anxiety


End file.
